Likay, Thai folk theatre: what it is and when to programme it

What likay is

A performance mixes song, spoken dialogue, comedy and melodrama. The plot follows a familiar outline — a thwarted love, a rivalry, a hidden identity, a reconciliation — but the lines are not written down: they are built on stage.

Its origins are the subject of several hypotheses. It is generally presented as a form born of the meeting between sung traditions and folk theatre, before settling into the shape we know today. It is better described that way than as a fixed ancient art: this is a form that has moved a great deal.

The costume announces it immediately: bright colours, sequins, stones, elements borrowed from several periods and assembled to catch the light. It is not a historical reconstruction, it is a popular-theatre costume, and it owns that status completely.

An open dramaturgy

The outline is fixed, the text is not. The performers adjust to the room, to the hour, to whatever has just happened in the evening. Two performances of the same piece do not resemble each other, and that is precisely where the value of the form lies.

The audience is part of it. They react out loud, cheer, comment. Tradition holds that they may show their attachment to a performer during the performance itself — a custom that sometimes disconcerts an organiser used to a silent audience.

The direct consequence for your running order: likay sits badly with rigid timing. If your slot is fifteen minutes and not one more, say so explicitly to the company in advance. They will hold to the constraint, but they need to know about it before they step on stage.

What the production has to plan for

In its original setting, a performance unfolds over several hours, sometimes late into the night. For an event, you programme an excerpt. Ask which scene works on its own and how many performers it actually requires.

The form is highly verbal: wordplay, sung passages, direct address to the audience. In front of an audience that does not speak Thai, a large part of it is lost. Three possible ways out, to be chosen deliberately: pick a scene that reads through action alone, precede the excerpt with a short introduction, or accept likay as colour and energy rather than as a story to be followed.

On the technical side, the voice is at the heart of the whole thing. You need a proper sound system, microphones for the performers, a monitor, and room for the musicians. A portable speaker and one microphone shared between two people will not do.

• —A stage wide enough for several performers in costume.
• —A sound system sized for both sung and spoken voice, with a monitor.
• —A private dressing room: changes and make-up take a long time.
• —A seated audience, or at least one held in place and facing the stage.

When to programme it, and when to let it go

Likay finds its place in front of a Thai-speaking audience, at a local celebration, a community festival or an event that claims a genuine cultural anchoring. It also works very well when the evening has a real seated slot, with no service competing for attention.

It lends itself badly, on the other hand, to a standing cocktail on tight timing in front of a largely foreign audience. This is not a question of quality: the form rests on speech, and speech that is not understood, in the middle of a hubbub, does not hold.

If you want the colour without the length, say exactly that: a short scene, more visual than spoken, followed by a moment of photographs in costume. It is a perfectly reasonable request, provided it is stated clearly rather than discovered on the night.